Copyright nytimes
Meta said on Wednesday that it cut approximately 600 jobs in its artificial intelligence division, according to a memo sent to employees that was relayed to The New York Times, as the company seeks to keep pace with competitors in the furious contest over the technology. The layoffs were in Meta’s so-called Superintelligence Labs, which is the umbrella name for the company’s A.I. efforts. The division has around 3,000 employees, though the exact number of workers was unclear. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, has been on a hiring spree to stack his company with top A.I. researchers, including a new chief A.I. officer, Alexandr Wang, earlier this year. The cuts on Wednesday did not affect these newest hires, who have been empowered to develop “superintelligence,” or artificial intelligence that exceeds the human brain. Instead, the job cuts were aimed at cleaning up the organizational bloat that resulted from three years of building up Meta’s A.I. efforts too quickly, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The layoffs aimed to help Meta develop A.I. products more rapidly, they said.
